Stirling wrote:

>In our own time there was an epidemic that swept with
>a broad broom across the well to do and cultured - AIDS.  The best we
>could do was The AIDs quilt, some low quality art songs, a third rate
>symphony from Corigliano and an overly long banal play that is rapidly
>falling into the mists of obscurity - and hundreds of incoherent screams
>of rage.  In otherwords, we were able to stammer forth a crude documentary
>of our feelings - because crude documentary is the art of a placid age.

On the other hand, one could argue (although I'm not sure I would want to
very confidently) that in our time we have developed ways of dealing with
such emotions, by therapy, etc., which work better for many people than
music and other arts, so that sufferers who once relied on the greatest
artists to help them deal with their suffering now tend to turn elsewhere.

Also, I would hesitate to condemn the works of art which have been inspired
by the AIDS epidemic.  The quilt seems to have a great deal of meaning for
AIDS patients and their friends and families, though others of us might not
consider it high art.  And Corigliano's symphony is certainly not on the
aesthetic level of Beethoven, Mahler, Shostakovich, etc., but then who else
writing symphonies today is on that level?

Jon Johanning // [log in to unmask]